


The Zoom Gambit

by dillonmania



Series: Another World [2]
Category: DCU, The Flash (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Flash Rogues, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dillonmania/pseuds/dillonmania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rogues vs Reverse-Flashes; it's pretty simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Zoom Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an RPverse, in which the Zooms have a history of antagonism against the Rogues and their associates.

It was early evening and yet all the lights were out at Patty Spivot’s house, which seemed strange. The front door was wide open. Lisa immediately suspected something was wrong and bounded up the porch steps to investigate; maybe there’d been a break-in. She’d taken three steps inside when she saw Patty, slumped on the floor and bleeding from the head. There was only time to exclaim “What—?” before a yellow blur punched her in the face and sent her sprawling. Keep calm, keep calm, it was obviously an ambush. Dazed and on her knees, she fumbled through her purse looking for the panic button to call Roscoe and the others, and the yellow blur hit her again. She was left almost senseless now, barely able to think clearly, but knew she had to press that button. After a few moments’ fumbling she found it and pressed it repeatedly, then allowed herself to collapse to the floor. Maybe the blur wouldn’t hit her after she stopped moving.

Eobard Thawne laughed. This almost seemed too easy -- which possibly meant it was -- but he wasn’t anticipating much more trouble. There were only a few Rogues _et famille_ remaining, and he considered only one a threat. Even the Flashes and other runners had gone down relatively quickly (oh ha ha), thanks to some rather unfair tag-teaming against them by the Zooms. All their foes would soon be dead or incapacitated, leaving Keystone and the future to Thawne and Zolomon. 

Eobard bent down to pick up Lisa by the hair, who was bleeding from her nose and mouth and choking on it. She still managed to glower darkly at him, and he smirked at her.  
“I won’t kill you, of course. You’ll come home with me.”  
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when something plowed into him at high speed, sending both he and Lisa careening wildly.  
“I. Will. Kill. You,” Roscoe spat in fury, spinning completely through a wall before doubling back to strike Thawne again. Most people wouldn’t be able to survive such a blow, let alone get up and prepare for a second, but Eobard was a particularly powerful speedster. He’d seen Roscoe coming at the last moment, braced himself, and recovered quickly. And when Roscoe spun around to hit his target again, he wasn’t expecting to find the yellow-suited man on his feet.

“Surprise!” Eobard grinned at him, taking advantage of his momentary hesitation. In an instant he ran at Roscoe and punched him -- his speed faster than Roscoe’s reaction time -- sending his foe flying into a wall. Spinning through a wall didn’t hurt him, but being hit into one did. Roscoe took a deeply pained breath and got up as quickly as possible, realizing this would actually be a difficult fight. The two of them had fought once before, nearly killing each other before Thawne had fled. This time, Eobard knew to expect him and was taking him seriously. As the Rogues’ attack dog, Roscoe was going to hit hard and play rough; fortunately for Eobard, he also hit hard and played just as roughly, and his colleague Hunter Zolomon was available to assist if needed.

It was nearly impossible for two speedsters to fight within the confines of a house, and Lisa and others were nearby as well, so Roscoe’s first priority after re-assessing the situation was to move the brawl outside. He feared Lisa would be defenceless if he left Thawne alone with her, so he had to force his enemy outside rather than leave first and lure him out. He charged in a spin at top speed, simply plowing the man through a wall and continuing to push him as far as possible from the house. Eventually, of course, Eobard recovered and punched him, which stopped the spinning and left Roscoe vulnerable to whatever his foe wanted to dish out. Though reeling, Roscoe suddenly startled him with a telekinetic battering ram of force, which was the equivalent of a strong blow to the face and left Eobard off-balance. 

It was time to pull out all the weapons in his arsenal. Despite his own wooziness, Roscoe attacked with his vertigo power, which turned Eobard’s world upside down and was particularly effective against speedsters. Having spent years in his own universe honing this ability against the Flash, he now poured it onto Thawne while getting close enough to beat the hell out of him with his own speedy fists.  
“You will die here,” he rasped angrily as he punched him repeatedly, and Thawne struggled to defend himself and even to stand. Roscoe had always possessed the least compunction about killing, and right now had no interest in arguments regarding morality. Quite simply, he planned to kill Thawne and then tear his corpse to pieces. A lesson had to be taught to other potential troublemakers: you don’t mess with the Rogues and their family. He didn’t care what Digger, Hartley, or even Lisa thought on the matter; the line had to be drawn.

Time distorted around Roscoe, and before he even realized what was happening, he was on the ground and bloody.  
“Iiiiiiiiittttwon’t be sooooo eeeeeasy,” announced a voice which reverberated oddly, difficult to understand, and Roscoe knew he was beaten. He lashed out with his vertigo power, but his attacker manipulated time around them and left it ineffective. Hunter Zolomon could alter time as he saw fit, enabling him to act at what appeared to be super-speed but left other speedsters seemingly slow and often unable to counter him. Now Hunter rained blows on Roscoe as he’d been doing to Thawne moments earlier, and Roscoe was only feebly able to resist. He tried to escape but Zolomon easily knocked him down again.

“Noooooootso connnnnfidennnnnt now, areyou?” Zoom grinned. Roscoe bared his teeth and spat blood at his face; a normal living person would have been dead by this point. The ghost within him was frantically repairing damage and forcing the body to keep going, but it could only take so much before breaking down and becoming uninhabitable.  
“See you in Hell,” Roscoe hissed as he lunged at Hunter and grabbed his throat, although it didn’t take much effort to fight him off.   
“Wasssss thatsupposedto sccccccaaaaare meeeee?” Hunter laughed loudly, with an eerie echo caused by the time distortion. Roscoe gasped on the ground at his feet, willing his heart to beat and lungs to fill with air as blood soaked the grass around him.

And then suddenly Hunter was shouting and covering his ears, bewildered by the piercing sound which assaulted him and seemed to come from all directions. He tried to manipulate time to escape it, but the excruciating noise was always present, and drove him to his knees. It quickly overloaded his brain and he lost all sense of self -- who he was, where he was, what he was doing. All he knew was that he needed to escape the sound, and then he was gone in a mindless attempt to get away; it could be weeks before he regained his bearings and remembered who he was.

Roscoe had lost consciousness during the sonic attack, and awoke some minutes later with Hartley kneeling over him.  
“Dead..?” he asked in a daze, and Hartley laughed nervously.  
“You’re alive. Zolomon’s gone, Thawne is unconscious, and James is checking the house to see if everyone’s okay. We got here as soon as we could.”  
Roscoe lurched into a sitting position in a manner uncomfortably reminiscent of zombie movies, and crawled towards Eobard with obvious evil intent.  
“Roscoe, don’t!” Hartley squawked. He was disturbed by what he’d done to Zolomon, disturbed by his friend’s determined efforts to murder someone, and just plain creeped out by their extensive injuries.

“You know they will do the same to us unless we stop them,” Roscoe said accusingly as Hartley gently but firmly pushed him back to the ground again. He lacked the strength to struggle, however, as he was barely able to breathe; Hunter had caved in his ribs and punctured both lungs.  
“We’ll stop them another way. Not like that,” Hartley declared with conviction he wasn’t sure he felt. James ran across the air to report that everyone in the house was alive but injured, and he’d called for medical assistance. And noted that Patty’s house had suffered a fair amount of structural damage during the fighting, probably rendering it uninhabitable.  
“Another way,” Hartley repeated, but it wasn’t clear there _was_ another way.


End file.
